Let's Not Talk Turkey

Surfing the television the food channels brought me to the realization that Thanksgiving is making its quick appearance. Suddenly, the major concern was the three best ways to cook the turkey. Next were the animated discussions of the ten best items to complete your holiday banquet. There was much turkey talk, which seemed like too much about very little.

Thanksgiving metaphors come quickly to mind as the holidays arrive and the seasons of the year change. The symbols and rituals are enriching enough: eating, drinking, family, recipes and tales. Images of the harvest and the warmth of the American hearth bring our nostalgia to full life.

Along with these memories and flashbacks our Catholic imagination brings an overflow of more narratives of our past and present. The month for Catholics began with All Saints’ Day followed by All Souls’ Day. November, likewise, carries lots of memories of saints, family, and friends who have gone before us and now rest in Christ. We quickly remember that our lives have and are changing. History embraces both a larger and a more personal vista.

Seasons Turning
Here in the northern hemisphere, the foliage reminds us that the seasons are turning. Bright colors give way to bare trees. Cooler temperatures awaken the urge in us to gather inside with friends and family. We move from summer, to fall, and soon to winter.

The times and seasons are changing and our Catholic imagination is fed with readings as the liturgical year ends and begins anew at Advent. We read about the urgency of life and faithful presence of God in the history written large and, at the same time, personally. The imagination hears about beginnings and endings, the calling to account of our human endeavors. Into this urgency breaks the dreamy and prophetic words of a new world or, at least, of a restored world where God’s People will once again come home rejoicing from exile.

The four weeks of Advent move us to the Good News of Christmas and Epiphany. The birth of

Jesus breaks into our human history. Humankind is reconciled and restored. The Infancy Narratives of the birthing of Jesus as Son of God and Son of Mary bring an even greater anticipation of God’s presence among us.

Urgent Prayer
Thanksgiving through Christmas is more than dancing through the world of commerce and measuring whether our finances will give us rejoicing this year. Our prayerful imagination invites us to be aware, alert, and alive to all the things of God among us. The urgency is to take notice and not fail to see the recreative newness of the times and liturgical seasons.

There’s more to our Catholic imagination than turning the calendar. All the movement and turnings of the seasons, the shared narratives, the eating and drinking together both in Church and at home are revelatory of God-with-us. In that turning we discover ourselves, who we are in Christ, and what our human life and history are all about.

Prayer in the Advent Fall and in the warmth of our mid-winter celebration of Christmas invites more than reflection and analysis. Prayer, by looking to our past and in standing firm in the present, can offer us imaginative possibilities of hope in the Kingdom of God.

Imagination takes time and being still. At once imagination can allow the embrace of God in our lives. His loving kindness is made real and alive in Emmanuel, God-with-us. At once we are transformed. We are able to embrace the things and actions of God around us.

Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany moves off the calendar into our lives. Life in each of these moments of celebration embraces us. The cohesive stuff of imaginative prayer and celebration is gathering for eating and drinking, telling our stories wrapped in God’s Word, and in returning to our world with new hearts and hope. Turkey is only the beginning. Let’s talk and live more than turkey, family nostalgia, and the world of commerce. Let us imagine life with God and his life in the gathering of our communities.

CDH